Trey Knox addresses what kind of role he could play in South Carolina offense

The NCAA transfer portal has created a lot of talent shifts across college football and one of them, however slight, occurred this offseason when South Carolina scooped Arkansas tight end Trey Knox up.

Knox is a veteran who should slide right into the South Carolina offense, helping make up for the loss of Jaheim Bell.

After spending the spring with the Gamecocks and getting a chance to watch the offense go to work, Knox is pretty confident things will be just fine in Columbia come the fall.

“We’re very deep and we have a lot of guys that can play,” Knox said. “We can just plug and play guys. We have a lot of talent. Spencer (Rattler), he’s a great quarterback, man. He’s very smart, strong arm and he’s very intentional.”

Whether Rattler can take the next step as a quarterback will likely determine whether South Carolina can progress from its eight-win campaign a year ago.

But some of that, too, will be up to the cast of characters around him playing supporting roles. That’s where the potential for Knox to have a big year is so intriguing.

While at Arkansas, Knox recorded 81 catches for 892 yards and nine touchdowns. He did that over the course of four seasons, but he hit paydirt five times last fall for the Razorbacks.

Trey Knox is simply excited about playing with Rattler.

“He knows what he’s doing, he knows who to look at, what to read, where to place the ball, what shoulder,” Knox explained. “If I’m coming out of a stick route, what shoulder to put it on so that I can avoid the defender. He thinks about all those things. He’s very cerebral, and you just love playing with guys like that that are on the same page as you are. It makes the game fun.”

Rattler has had a little bit of an up-and-down career as a player.

He started off with a 3,031-yard season in 2020 at Oklahoma, throwing 28 touchdowns and just seven interceptions. But he lost his starting job to Caleb Williams after that, transferring to South Carolina.

Rattler’s production a year ago was strong, with the traveling quarterback throwing for 3,026 yards. But he was inconsistent at times, finishing with 18 touchdowns but also 12 interceptions.

This season will be a real test for him, and Trey Knox hopes to be there to help him ace it.